Fox anchor Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot” and last year’s “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever” crackle with the tension of a brisk James Bond thriller. Yet they aren’t novels, a point O’Reilly wishes to enforce: “These are not Gore Vidal.” This week, both books are performing like the latest bestsellers from John Grisham or J.K. Rowling.

It can't be easy premiering a TV film about Abraham Lincoln in the shadow of Steven Spielberg's celebrated motion picture, which has drawn plaudits, awards and a long list of Oscar nods.

On the flip side, the big-screen “Lincoln” also sparked new interest in our 16th president, which could benefit “Killing Lincoln” (7 tonight). The first scripted original movie from the National Geographic Channel, it's a shining piece of historical drama.

LeadBilly Campbellturns in a sensitive and poignant portrayal that further deepens our knowledge of Lincoln.

“He was arguably our greatest president. He was self-taught, well-rounded, a complex and profound human being who did great things for our country,” Campbell said during a recent interview. “I can't think of any American historical figure who is as justifiably revered, or who was as tragically fated.”

Jesse Johnson (son of Don Johnson) ably fleshes out the man who masterminded that tragic fate, actor John Wilkes Booth. Johnson depicts Booth as a man who can't be simply dismissed as a psychopath but one who truly believed that Lincoln was a tyrant, an enemy of the South.

“Killing Lincoln,” based on Bill O'Reilly's best-seller, can be described as picking up where “Lincoln” left off.

“Spielberg's film really focuses on the 13th Amendment ... the story of the victory of Abraham Lincoln,” said screenwriter and producer Erik Jendresen (“Band of Brothers”). “Ours is really the story of the tragedy, and the irony that, once the events — covered with the ending of the Civil War, the signing of the surrender, and the (passing of) the 13th Amendment — (were over), Lincoln had a moment, literally, of maybe 48 hours in which he was able to shed all of the grief and pain and responsibility that he had been living with.”

As the film shows with chilling intensity, it was all taken from him while he sat beside his wife enjoying a play.

“He never had a chance to savor what he had accomplished,” Jendresen said. “And so there's a glimpse of the man at home with some of the weight off his shoulders for just an instant before it all ends.”

The drama — from producers Ridley and the late Tony Scott — is full of exciting and surprising moments. We watch the president survive an earlier attempt on his life, his stovepipe hat, as Lincoln quips, “nicely ventilated for the summer months” by a bullet.

We learn of his prophetic dream of a coffin, and are reminded that Booth's brutal plot not only included Lincoln but also Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson. The latter was left unharmed, but Seward was severely injured in a savage knife attack.

The film also benefits from narration byTom Hanks, which is interspersed throughout the action. At times, Hanks' asides are poetic, at others, full of grim reality.

When Campbell (“The Killing,” “Once and Again”) was cast as Lincoln, the greatness of the role didn't escape him, but he approached it without trepidation. Makeup artists helped him look the part — bushier eyebrows and a beard flecked with gray — but Campbell didn't feel the need to affect a voice for Lincoln as Daniel Day-Lewis did in the movie.

“It was Erik (Jendresen) in my ear,” he said. “I felt really, really very safe, and in the hands of some obviously very passionate people. So I felt nearly no pressure.”

The movie not only illustrates how much Lincoln was loved but also how much he was hated. Instead of writing off Booth as crazy, Jendresen said, the movie does something more disturbing: He's portrayed as “a man who believed fervently in something ... .He just got it so wrong.”

Toward the end of the film, Hanks relates the fates of Booth and his henchmen — the assassin died from a gunshot wound; his co-conspirators were convicted and hanged. That this wasn't just about murdering the president, Hanks says. These men “conspired to decapitate the government of the United States.”

Jeanne Jakle's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays in mySA, and she blogs at Jakle's Jacuzzi on mySA.com. Email her at jjakle@express-news.net.